


out of alibis to say

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Getting Together, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-12-01 22:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20912855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: They spend every day that summer in Sammy’s treehouse playing Star Trek – Lily is the oldest, and therefore in charge, and always proclaims herself as Captain Kirk. She makes Jack be Spock even though Jack is a very bad Spock because he’s far too emotional. That leaves Sammy with Bones, but Bones is secretly Sammy’s favorite on Star Trek so he doesn’t mind at all. He can’t tell Lily that he likes being Bones, though, because then Lily would make him be Scotty.





	out of alibis to say

**Author's Note:**

> So fun fact the first time I listened to the show I totally pictured Sammy, Lily, and Jack as growing up together and I've finally put that in a fic because we DESERVE that, collectively. Hopefully I'll post again next Saturday!!

The Wrights move next door the summer after Sammy turns seven.

Jack is six and Lily is eight and they’re both annoyed that Sammy’s right in between but Sammy likes it. The Wrights clearly never learned how to share, but Sammy enjoys having two best friends. He hadn’t even had one best friend or any friends at all before they moved in.

They spend every day that summer in Sammy’s treehouse playing Star Trek – Lily is the oldest, and therefore in charge, and always proclaims herself as Captain Kirk. She makes Jack be Spock even though Jack is a very bad Spock because he’s far too emotional. That leaves Sammy with Bones, but Bones is secretly Sammy’s favorite on Star Trek so he doesn’t mind at all. He can’t tell Lily that he likes being Bones, though, because then Lily would make him be Scotty.

“It’s so cool that you’ve got a treehouse,” Jack tells him that first week, sitting cross-legged opposite Sammy. Lily’s trying to scale the tree to get down, and shrieking with what might be delight and might be pain, Sammy hasn’t checked to see if she fell yet because Jack’s beaming over at him and he really likes that.

“Yeah, it is,” Sammy says, a little proud. The treehouse had already been here when he and his parents moved in when he was four. It’s not like his dad had taken the time to make it for him or anything. His dad was too busy for that sort of thing, but that also meant he was too busy to take it down. So Sammy got a treehouse. “It’s cooler that you’re from _California._”

California is where Hollywood is, where the movie stars live and everyone is really beautiful and cool and amazing, and it’s nothing like here. Sammy’s never even been on vacation to anywhere but the beach two hours away, let alone across the country. Let alone California.

Lily explains to him fourteen times that they don’t know any movie stars, and rolls her eyes because Sammy is a dumb seven year old and she, at eight, is very mature and interesting and knows everything_. _

“Are you coming down?” Lily interrupts with a shout from the ground. “The Klingons are invading!”

Sammy looks to Jack, who shrugs, and then his face splits into a wide beam, and he jumps all the way down from the treehouse to the grass.

The three of them spend all summer like that, and all school year, too. They don’t share a recess because they’re all in different grades, but they bike to school together and bike home together and reign their conjoining backyards until dark. 

Jack and Lily’s mom is really nice, nicer than Sammy’s mom, and their dad travels a lot so he’s hardly ever around.

“I wish my dad was never home,” Sammy tells Jack the first time Sammy’s parents let him sleep over at Jack’s house. Lily was kicked out of Jack’s room at eleven by Jack’s mom which had made her scowl, but Sammy and Jack get to whisper into the night. “You’re so lucky.”

“Yeah,” Jack says quietly from the other side of the bed. He looks a little different when he’s not wearing his big glasses, not that Sammy’s looking or anything, not when he’s so young. He’ll be looking soon. “I miss him, but – yeah.”

Sammy feels a pressure on his hand and realizes that Jack’s squeezing it, his small nails digging in.

Sammy’s seven, and doesn’t know any better, all he knows is that Jack is upset and he loves Jack and he doesn’t want Jack to be upset anymore. So he squeezes Jack’s hand back.

The next summer, they still play Star Trek sometimes but they play X Men a lot, too. Again, Lily’s in charge, and she decides she’d rather be a villain than a hero, so she’s Mystique and she chases them around the neighborhood trying to kill them. Maybe literally, sometimes. Or Jack makes them pretend to hunt for Bigfoot, or Nessie. Those are his favorites. 

Once, Sammy’s dad comes outside to yell at them for making a racket and Sammy can tell Jack and Lily realize that Sammy’s not making it up when he tells them how mean his dad can be. Spit flying, face red, yelling until he’s hoarse. Sammy’s mom comes out to apologize, drag him away, says he’s in a bad mood.

Sammy goes up to the treehouse, and his two best friends follow. Lily doesn’t stay for long, but Jack stays until dark, and he holds onto Sammy’s hand and tells him it’s okay, maybe Jack’s mom will let him stay over that night? Or at least for dinner? He keeps holding his hand. Sammy keeps holding back.

By the time they’re out of elementary school, Sammy knows that he can’t keep letting Jack do that. Can’t keep reaching out. They still do sometimes, when they’re alone in the treehouse, but that’s it. Lily can never know or she’d make fun of them forever. No one else can never know because – because – because of _other reasons. _

“Boys aren’t supposed to hold hands,” Sammy says after school one day. He’s eleven and Jack’s ten and Jack’s still in elementary and Sammy feels very grown up in comparison, even though he knows at heart that he’s not. Jack’s still got his big glasses, he’ll trade them out for square ones in a couple of years, and then for contacts in high school.

“I know,” Jack says quickly, and Sammy stares up at the oak tree above them, the branches spread out wide, sun peeking through small cracks. “But you’re just really upset, and no one is here, so – it’s okay, as long as no one can see.”

A kid at school had shoved Sammy on the sidewalk after the final bell. Sammy still doesn’t know why, or what he did to deserve it. Lily marched up to the guy afterwards to yell at him, and he couldn’t hit a girl, but Sammy feels embarrassed and weak and some of the other boys laughed. They’d laugh more if they could see him holding hands with Jack in a treehouse.

“Yeah,” Sammy says slowly, because even though he knows it’s not right, the only other person who’s ever held his hand is his mom. She and Jack are the only people who touch him and hug him. Lily does once in a while, but even at twelve she still thinks boys have cooties. “As long as no one sees, I guess.”

“Cool,” Jack squeezes, and Sammy squeezes back. Then Jack lets go and he helps Sammy with his math homework because Jack is good at math and Sammy sucks, and they don’t touch each other again that night. Just once in a while, on bad days, for a minute or two.

That works until Sammy’s thirteen, the first time another boy calls him a really disgusting name on the bus ride home and Sammy feels the word burning on his skin like a brand.

The next time Jack tries to touch him in the treehouse, Sammy shoves him away.

“What?” Jack blinks over at him, big eyes. Square glasses now. No contacts yet. “Seriously, dude, what? I just –”

“We can’t _do that,” _Sammy hisses under his breath, suddenly certain that everyone in the world can see him right now, and they’re laughing at him, because they can tell how different Sammy is and how that’s the worst thing in the world he can be. 

They can tell. They can tell that Sammy likes it when Jack touches him that have nothing to do with being Jack’s best friend, that it sends a tingle up his spine like it’s something exciting, that makes him breathless, a feeling he lives for, craving constantly, and Jack and his square glasses don’t know, how could they know, that Sammy’s taken whatever innocence in Jack’s gesture to comfort him and twisted it and corrupted it and turned it into something awful?

Jack reels back, frowning. He’s not crying, though. At six, Jack would’ve cried. His emotions had always been too big for his body – Lily could make Jack cry four times a day if she tried, and she tried all the time. Now though, at twelve, Jack’s learned how to keep his feelings inside.

“We’re alone,” Jack starts, but Sammy cuts him off, because alone is a problem now, alone is painful, because when they’re alone Sammy can’t pretend anything anymore.

“Yeah, but – I’m gonna be in high school next year,” Sammy’s voice shakes. “You just don’t get it, Jack. It’s not okay anymore. I’m grown up, I’ve got – and you’re – it’s just different now, and you can’t get it.”

“What?” Jack’s mouth twists and anger and hurt seeps into his voice. Sammy wants to cry. “I can’t get it because I’m a whole ten months younger than you? You’re as crappy as Lily.”

Lily’s spent years telling them how much better and smarter she is than them just because she’s older, and Sammy and Jack had always just made fun of her for it, because it’s not like Lily’s an adult either. 

“You just can’t,” Sammy repeats again, because if Jack thinks that’s the reason, maybe Jack will get angry and leave and Sammy can cry by himself. “It’s not okay. Not for you, either. You want to get beat up when you get to high school? I don’t. Just – leave me alone. Don’t touch me.”

“Fine,” Jack’s eyes well up with tears, bright and brown and horrible, even though his voice remains even. “Be that way. Just don’t come crying to me when you no one in high school wants to be your friend ‘cause you’re a total asshole.”

Jack flips him off before he climbs down from the treehouse, and Sammy’s alone but he can’t even cry he’s so upset, and isn’t that just the stupid fucking thing in the world.

Jack doesn’t come back to the treehouse for a long time, and he doesn’t touch Sammy either.

Which is what Sammy wanted.

Right?

Lily hits Sammy the next time she sees him. He doesn’t talk to the Wrights all summer. He talks to Lily a little when school starts because they’re both in the same high school, and even share a horrible PE class. She’s still frosty, though, and Sammy can’t be mad at her for it.

He barely talks to Jack all year.

It’s fine. Jack’s probably way better off, and making better friends, friends who aren’t Sammy, who aren’t shitty like Sammy, who didn’t push him away and didn’t make him want to hold their hands to begin with, because Sammy’s sure it’s his fault, that he somehow tricked Jack into touching him and that Jack never would’ve decided to hold his hand if Sammy hadn’t made him with his mind or something. He’s lucky Jack never figured out what Sammy did, how he manipulated him, because if Jack never knows he can never hate him for it.

Jack can hate him for other things, but not for the thing Sammy thinks about every single night as he can’t sleep, listening to his parents scream bloody murder at each other, with the knowledge that Jack’s only a house away.

So many people would hate him.

Sammy has a horrible freshmen year.

* * *

“Hey, burnout.”

Sammy, eyes closed, can tell someone stepped in front of him, blocking the sun. He curls a little further against the oak tree in his backyard, because unfortunately he knows that voice, even if it’s become decidedly less squeaky in the past few months.

“Hey, football star,” Sammy croaks, opening his eyes to see Jack Wright, big glasses gone with contacts now, absolutely towering over him.

Jack grew eight inches in the past eight months, Sammy’s pretty sure. He hasn’t talked to Jack much, but Sammy sees Jack walking home or on the bus or, in the last month, in the halls at school. Now they’re both in high school. And Jack’s on the football team. The coaches didn’t even bench him, he’s the only freshmen who plays regularly. He’s popular on the team and on the cheerleading squad. Lily, meanwhile, has friends in the drama club and with the group of girls who sneak out of the bathroom window to smoke like they’re in a 80s film. Sammy has no friends at all.

“You’re blocking the sun,” Sammy tells Jack because he isn’t sure what else he can say. Any time he’s talked to Jack recently, he initiated it. Over the summer, they walked home together once and Sammy tried to ask about how he’s been doing but Jack basically brushed him off and ran away. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here, asshole,” Jack says as if Sammy could forget. “What’s all the noise going on in your house?”

“I think Mom’s finally had enough,” Sammy closes his eyes again, wishing Jack hadn’t asked that question. There’s another unpleasant shattering sound from inside the house. “She’s been screaming all day, and Dad’s been screaming back. They’re both breaking shit. She might be leaving.”

Jack’s quiet for a second, his brow furrowing. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

Sammy shrugs. “Good for her. Wish I could leave.”

Jack’s eyes flicker between Sammy and the house, and then with a twist of his mouth, he cautiously sits down on the lawn across from Sammy, folding his overly-long legs together with the clumsiness of someone who suddenly has a lot more body than they’re used to. Sammy’s growth spurt had been this year too, but he only shot up maybe four inches. Jack’s a mountain.

“You’re so fucking tall,” Sammy says before he can help himself. To his surprise, the comment makes Jack laugh, the edges of his eyes crinkling. 

“I’ve heard,” Jack teases, putting his elbows on his knees. “That’s why they let me start at the last game. I’m taller than anyone else on the team.”

“Good for you,” Sammy says, partially meaning it but he knows that his tone comes across snidely.

“You’re one to judge,” Jack raises his eyebrows. No more glasses. Sammy misses his glasses. “Aren’t you a finalist in the competition for grossest facial hair ever on a teenager?”

Sammy blushes involuntarily. He knows the stubble on his face doesn’t look good by any means, but it does make him look older and that’s all he wants right now. He doesn’t want a baby face, or for people to think he’s a kid.

“Maybe,” Sammy says, a little petulant, but Jack grins all the same.

There’s another crash from the house that makes both Sammy and Jack wince as Sammy’s mother’s voice carries from across the yard, _and another thing!_

“Maybe she’ll get over it,” Jack suggests, apparently still with optimism in spades.

“Maybe,” Sammy tries not to feel sick, and fails. “It’s not the first time they’ve fought like this. Besides, Dad doesn’t believe in divorce, so – it’ll be a long road, no matter what.”

“Do you….” Jack hesitates, biting his lip. Sammy feels the air get tenser around them, like everything sharpens and hones in on the two of them. “Look, not that I forgive you or anything. But you can stay at our house tonight. My mom misses you. Asks about you all the time.”

Sammy stares at Jack, who seems so genuine, even after – even though Sammy’s –

He must not know. He must’ve never figured it out. That’s the only reason he’d ever come over here and talk to Sammy again in the first place.

“What do you say?” Sammy finds himself asking even though he dreads the answer. “When she asks?”

“I generally ignore the question,” Jack smiles, and Sammy notices that his cheeks have gone pink. “Lily says you’re floundering without the help and guidance of the Wrights, and just cannot land on your feet. She’s dramatic, though.”

“Also not wrong,” Sammy says in half a second, and Jack’s eyes flicker over at him in surprise. Sammy quickly clarifies, heart beating in his chest, not wanting Jack to misconstrue, “I miss getting help with math homework.”

Jack shakes his head, but Sammy thinks maybe that was the right thing to say, because Jack’s still smiling. The smile gets a strange, sad quality when Jack says, apologetic tone, “Lily said you failed half your classes last year. I thought maybe she was exaggerating…”

“Not half,” Sammy says, though his stomach turns. “Three. Mrs. Morrison still thinks I can graduate on time as long as I don’t fuck up this year as badly.”

“Maybe you need a tutor.”

“Are you offering?”

Jack stares at him, expression mild and unchanging, but Sammy can tell there’s a flicker of hurt, there. He has no idea what Jack can see on his face, what he can read into, if he can tell how much Sammy regrets what he said and how he said it, and he’d go back and relive this nightmare of a year if he could just change that one moment up in the treehouse.

“I’m really sorry,” Sammy adds before Jack can respond with whatever rejection that Sammy deserves from him. “I didn’t mean to –”

_Didn’t mean to have a crush on you, _Sammy’s brain dejectedly fills in with misery. He knows that those words can never be spoken out loud if he wants to survive the next three years. He thinks maybe Jack would pity him instead of beat him up, but it’s hard to say which would be worse.

“Make me feel like a dumb kid?” Jack finishes with a bitter twist of his mouth that doesn’t make him any less attractive. Sammy’s pretty sure the universe let Jack grow a foot just to punish him specifically. “That’s really all I remember about the fight. I cried for like four hours afterwards, and then resolved to never think about it again.”

Well, maybe that’s a blessing, Jack not remembering the details. Then he can never put the pieces together about exactly why Sammy was so afraid of Jack touching him.

“You’re not,” Sammy says, and then realizes that’s a little too vague. “A dumb kid, I mean. You weren’t then and you aren’t now. I mean, you’re fucking massive, for one thing, and that pisses me off –”

Jack shoves him, but it’s not a violent shove, not the kind Sammy’s gotten used to over the years. It’s friendly and he’s groaning, and they’re both laughing like they’re still in elementary school even though Sammy’s parents are still getting hoarse and breaking half the kitchen only yards away.

He and Jack are in his backyard, treehouse above them, shoving and laughing like they’re kids. Sammy feels, for the first time in a year, somewhere close to okay.

Sammy stays at Jack’s that night, but on the couch and not Jack’s room. They don’t touch. Don’t hold hands. Don’t talk about it. Maybe Jack’s forgotten all of that, too. All those years of stolen moments, only alive in Sammy’s head and not Jack’s, because they meant so much more to him. It makes Sammy relieved and sad at the same time.

Lily gets home and gives Sammy one look, then says “Well, I knew we couldn’t chase you away forever. Like a stray dog on the side of the road.”

“Fuck off,” Sammy says, and then gets the air knocked out of him in surprise when Lily leans over to hug him.

“You can’t be a total burnout as long as you’re hanging with us,” Lily says when she lets him go. “We won’t let you flunk out of school and be stuck in this shithole forever.”

It’s a promise, Sammy’s too aware, and Lily won’t let anything stop her from getting exactly what she wants.

Jack’s promise means more to him, a week later when they’re walking to school together, Sammy working to keep up with Jack’s long legs and teasing him while Jack teases him back. Jack suddenly cuts in, serious and somber, “Let’s never fight again. And if we do, we’ve gotta make up right away.”

“Deal,” Sammy promises, a promise they both keep for longer than anyone would ever expect, especially Sammy at fifteen, who still thinks Jack wouldn’t ever speak to him again if he knew. 

* * *

“I’m just worried about missing the calc homework –”

“Of course you are, golden boy. Live a little for a change!”

“I can live a little and not miss the calc homework.”

“Babe,” Amy leans down to kiss Jack, very much in his lap and still sopping wet from the impromptu drive down to the beach, “You’ll be fine.”

Sammy determinedly tears his eyes away from Jack, even as Lily and Jeremy make obnoxious sucking noises in their direction from the front seat. He tightens his arm around Diane, who’s leaning against him in a way that makes him want to cringe. He’s usually okay with touching Diane, but there’s something particularly skin-crawling about a car full of a wet people, one of whom is his girlfriend who expects him to enjoy skin-to-skin contact.

Sammy should really break up with her, because he’s never going to be able to have sex with her. Making out is bad enough. But Lily has Jeremy and Jack has Amy, and they go on double dates and triple dates and they skip school to come to the beach and it makes sense that Sammy has someone too, and he honestly likes Diane. He really does, just not in the way she likes him. She helps him with schoolwork when Jack’s not around, and in turn he gives her rides to and from school and work since she doesn’t have a car.

They’re all in Lily’s car today – Jeremy wanted to drive, but Lily has the biggest car, so she insisted. It’s not terribly muggy out and they all decided they wanted to go to the beach, school be damned.

Except for Jack, who’s very particular about schoolwork. Sammy, despite doing pretty okay the past couple of years with Jack and Lily’s help, but he still has the reputation of a burnout loser, so no one expects him to have a problem with skipping.

“I can have fun,” Jack cuts in when Amy laughs shrilly. “I just – you know, school can also be fun!”

“This is why you’re graduating early,” Amy rolls her eyes at Jack but with obvious affection, maybe even lust. Sammy, again, makes himself look at the window rather than at the two of them.

“That and he can’t bear separation from Sammy,” Lily’s eyes twinkle back at them from the driver’s seat and Sammy and Jack both groan at the same time to cut her off. Sammy quickly decides the subject has to be changed, but thankfully Jeremy cuts in before he does. 

“Hey, mad respect for that,” Jeremy says, because of course Lily picked an insufferable bro-type to date. “The team will miss having him around, though. Maybe as much as they’ll miss me.”

Jeremy and Lily are about to graduate. Jeremy’s being absolutely insufferable about it, because Jeremy’s insufferable about most everything.

“Oh, honey, arrogance is unattractive,” Lily clicks her tongue from the front side and Jack snorts.

“Someone should tell you that –”

“C’mon, guys, don’t fight,” Diane interjects with her slight, tinny voice. It wouldn’t be unattractive if Sammy were into girls, but he’s really, _really _not into girls. If he didn’t know that before now, dating Diane is certainly the proof that he cannot do this, he can’t pretend forever. He’ll just have to be single for life instead, perpetual bachelorhood. “Enough sibling rivalry for one day, yeah? And I am talking about all three of you.”

“We are all dating a package deal here,” Amy agrees, still on Jack’s lap because she’s the smallest and that’s the only spot for her in the car. Amy and Diane are best friends, so it makes total and complete sense that they’re dating Sammy and Jack, who are best friends. Everything makes a lot of sense from a heterosexual standpoint, Sammy’s almost entirely sure.

“I feel like I’m dating one of the boys half the time,” Jeremy surges into Lily’s personal across the counsel in the front of the car to peck at her face, and Lily elbows him away as she ducks.

“That’s just what you’re into, I guess,” Lily says in that blasé way of hers that sets off another round of teasing.

They drop Jeremy off first, because he lives at the furthest edge of town. Amy gets off of Jack’s lap after that, and Diane decides to leave with her and get her parents to pick her up from Amy’s house.

“Bye,” Diane leans up to peck Sammy’s cheek before she gets out of the car. Lily and Jeremy played tonsil hockey before he left in the most disgusting way possible, and Sammy won’t even let himself think about how Jack got out of the car, probably to make out with Amy as a goodbye. “Call you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Sammy agrees, even though he dreads the phone calls. Talking to her is fine, all in all, but he just feels guilty that he’s leading her on the whole time. “Have a good night.”

The door slams, Diane out and Jack back in, and Lily puts the car in drive. It’s just the three of them again for the ten minute drive back to their neighborhood.

The car stinks like beach water, and the leather seats sop with water. Towels are strewn across every seat back, and Sammy feels sand between his toes and in his hair. Lily’s still in her bikini with her hair piled on top of her head, frizzing and messy, and Jack’s t-shirt is sticking to the back of the seat.

Sammy realizes after a moment that they’re all making pained faces, and then a moment later sees the realization of the same thing dawn on Lily’s face.

He doesn’t think it has anything to do with how fucking gross Lily’s car is, although that’s probably part of it.

“Hey, guys,” Lily says, voice uncharacteristically soft. “Am I the only one who noticed how miserable we all are?”

Sammy turns to Jack, who just shakes his head, and turns out the window instead of looking at Sammy.

“Maybe,” Jack’s voice is small and somewhat strangled, but in that moment, Sammy is certain that he knows exactly how he feels. How Lily feels, too.

And how they might all be in this together, in some odd way that none of them have discovered yet.

* * *

Sammy is nineteen, tipsy, about to be sick.

It’s all out in the open.

“_No way.”_

Lily, at least, is absolutely fucking delighted right now if her crow-like laugh is anything to by. She slings her arms around both Jack and Sammy’s shoulders, the three of them leaning haphazardly against the couch in her shitty apartment. She knocks their heads together with a casual force belonging exclusively to mild drunkenness, and giggles again through a hiccup.

“We could tell,” Lily laughs through her alcohol-induced haze, eyes glazing over, “we could tell even when we were kids and didn’t know any better! We literally adopted another gay into the family!”

Sammy winces at being referred to like that, a noun, and he feels Jack’s eyes on him even though Lily’s between them. Wide and brown and apologetic and Sammy cannot believe that Jack’s gay, too.

He can believe Lily’s a lesbian. Lily has hated men since birth, probably, and her relationship with Jeremy had lasted seven months before she promptly dumped him on leaving for college. Lily has an air of confidence to her, too, which is why she’s the one who got them drunk and got them to spill their deepest, darkest secrets.

Because Lily knew. Lily knew they were both gay –_both. _As in Jack, too.

“We make so much sense, guys,” Lily smiles a little vacantly, still with her arms around them both. She presses a sloppy kiss to Sammy’s cheek, and then Jack’s. “I love you both so much. We’re a family – and now we know why! We know _why_!”

She laughs in delight again as she staggers to her feet, reaching for the bottle of vodka across the room. “I’m gonna pour more! I’ve got ciders, too – we need to celebrate! To queer liberation!”

Lily cackles again as she stumbles into the kitchen. She is, unquestionably, the most drunk of the three of them. Sammy’s more than tipsy, enough that he managed to get the words out when she asked directly, but he has more of a presence of mind.

He thinks Jack’s mostly sober, and will never forget the way Jack said, _yeah, I’m gay – Lily, would you stop laughing like that? This really isn’t how I pictured telling you guys. _

“It’s not how I pictured it either,” Sammy’s also drunk enough that talking to Jack alone, and Jack’s big brown eyes land on his with too much softness. “I mean, it’s better – I think? It’s weird but – you don’t hate me.”

“Of course not,” Jack laughs, quiet and a little tender. He doesn’t reach out to touch Sammy, but he does scoot a little closer.

Oh, shit, touch. Sammy, touch, holding hands, middle school. Sammy stopped touching him and maybe Jack thought – maybe he – Sammy didn’t want him touching –

Guilt floods through Sammy’s system and that’s what he attributes for how his beer bottle slips from his hands and he throws his arms around Jack’s neck.

He feels Jack laugh slightly against him, and then wrap his arms around Sammy’s waist.

Jack doesn’t hate him. Jack doesn’t pity him. Jack is just like him, maybe. Maybe. Maybe he could’ve –

“I bet you guys had such big crushes on each other when we were kids. The way you’d run off alone sometimes!”

Sammy squeezes his eyes closed, willing Lily to shut up and stop ruining this moment. If he’s ever going to tell Jack, tonight would be the time, but does Jack even remember holding hands when they were ten, Sammy doesn’t know –

“Shut up,” Jack groans in Lily’s direction as he lets go of Sammy’s torso. Sammy misses the contact right away, tipsy as he is, and it’s only when Jack smiles tentatively over at him that Sammy’s sure that Jack remembers, Jack remembers just like he does.

Lily teases them for twenty more minutes before she starts snoring on the couch, and Sammy doesn’t let his eyes droop because he needs to talk to Jack, needs to tell him, let him know, if not now then –

“I’m glad we all know now,” Jack says, soft and smiling as he brushes Lily’s hair out of her face as she snorts unattractively in her sleep. “I’m glad we’re all – that I won’t ever lose either of you. Because of this.”

“Never,” Sammy says, not letting himself move closer to Jack yet. Not time yet. Has to use words. Words. He’s good at words, isn’t he? He can say words. “Never, Jack. I – I’m sorry, for when I was a dick when we were kids. I was just – I thought you’d hate me, and if I pushed you away then you wouldn’t hate me because of –”

“Never,” Jack echoes him, and Sammy thinks this is it, this is the time, he’s never been so sure of anything in his life, of the fact that he’s going to say something and reach out and hold Jack’s hand again for the first time in more than five years. He’s going to do it. He will – Jack will want him to – Jack won’t hate him –

“I have, um,” Jack’s voice interrupts Sammy’s mantra. “I have a boyfriend? Maybe? I thought – um – you could meet him. I’d really like for you to meet him.”

“Jack,” the air goes out of Sammy’s lungs because of course. _Of course._ “Of course.”

Of course Jack has a boyfriend. Jack is incredibly handsome, and so very tall, and the smartest person Sammy knows. He’s hilarious and quick-witted and the definition of a catch, boyfriend material. If Jack’s gay, then he probably has a boyfriend who’s just as amazing as he is.

Of course it’s not Sammy. Of course that’s not for Sammy. It’s a miracle that Jack’s going to be his friend forever – that’s all Sammy deserves, but also all he needs. As long as he gets Jack in his life, in any way, and now he can talk to Jack and confide in him and they’ll _understand_ each other.

Of course it’s selfish to wish for anything else.

* * *

Sammy’s lying flat on his back in his childhood treehouse, trying not to throw up.

He hasn’t drank anything – his mom drank more than enough for both of them – but the nausea threatens to overtake him in the exact same way it would if he were hammered. He thinks about drawing his knees to his chest, but that would require moving. He’s too lethargic to move.

He lays there for less than five minutes on his own before he hears the sound of someone else climbing his treehouse ladder, and a quiet curse tells him that it’s Jack. Naturally, Jack, who came to find him in his favorite hiding place.

“This place is smaller than I remember,” Jack tells him, and though Sammy’s eyes are closed, he can tell that Jack is lying next to him, flat on his back just like Sammy. He can’t even feel any particular way about that, far too numb for any feeling that isn’t pain.

“You grew twenty feet in the past ten years,” Sammy says without opening his eyes. Jack chuckles quietly, close to Sammy’s ear but not too close.

“Exaggerations.”

“Barely.”

Jack lets the silence sit, and Sammy can’t bear that for long. He’s a talker by nature, even if it’s not talking about the things that bother him most. “I never thought I’d be back here.”

“In the treehouse or at your parents’?” Jack asks, gentle and not too prodding. Not without curiosity, though.

“Both,” Sammy answers, sighing. “Is my mom still –”

“I think my mom put her to bed. Lily’s cleaning up the kitchen,” Jack says, and then lets out a long breath. “I’m so sorry, Sammy. I know you weren’t close to your dad, but it’s still – Jesus. I can’t imagine.”

Sammy doesn’t want to talk about it, but knows Jack won’t let it go. And if he’s going to get out his feeling to anyone, he knows it’s going to be Jack.

“I just,” Sammy hesitates before plowing forward, “I know my father would’ve hated me more than he already did, if he’d ever found out. About me. But it’s still – I mean, I’ll never know, will I? I’ll never know what he would’ve said. What he would’ve thrown at me. I mean, I can guess it would be something heavy.”

Sammy laughs bitterly, even though nothing is funny. If he doesn’t laugh, he’s going to start crying, and that will end badly for everyone.

“Mom’s free now, finally,” Sammy has to remain upbeat, has to find the good in this. “It’ll be hardest on her but – maybe best for her in the end. Finally free of the old bastard.”

“Sammy,” Jack says softly. “Your dad was a pretty terrible person. But you’re still allowed to be sad, okay? You’re twenty-one and your father’s gone and you can be sad about that.”

“I know,” Sammy says quickly, even though he doesn’t know if he’s internalized that yet. “I know I can be sad. I _am _sad. Not for him. For everyone else. Because life sucks and then you die – but everyone else dies first, right? You have to suffer through that before you can die. Everyone else dies first. Can I die first, Jack? With you and me – can I die first?”

Sammy closes his eyes, the tears that hadn’t come in the past twenty-four hours finally threatening to spill. He doesn’t expect Jack to answer. It’s a stupid question, anyway.

He’s right, Jack doesn’t answer, but there’s a hand brushing his hair back away from his wet eyes that must belong to Jack because he’s the only other person in the treehouse. It feels like his hand, large and calloused but the kind of gentle Sammy doesn’t deserve.

Then the hand is gone, but Jack’s pulling at Sammy’s shoulder, and – oh, he’s pulling him up, they’re sitting now, Sammy’s face is buried in Jack’s shoulder and Jack’s patting his back in a rhythmic, comforting sort of way, whispering things about how it’s going to be alright. Sammy knows it’s not, but he’s glad Jack’s letting him pretend, just for a moment.

And then Jack takes Sammy’s hand, and slots their fingers together.

They’re holding hands. They’re holding hands in the treehouse.

Sammy starts crying even harder. He thinks maybe Jack’s crying, too.

“Don’t,” Sammy tries to say, because Jack doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore, and neither does Sammy, but that doesn’t mean Jack can lead him on like this. Best friends can hold hands if they’re Sammy and Jack, and it doesn’t have to mean anything more. “Don’t –”

Jack squeezes his hand tighter, and it reminds Sammy of every time they’d sneak up here when they were kids just so no one could see them, so they’d finally be alone, just the two of them together. “You can die first, Sammy.”

That doesn’t sound like leading him on, Sammy realizes numbly in the back of his mind, and it certainly doesn’t feel like that when Jack pulls his head back from Sammy’s to look him in the eye. Bright and hazel and so wide – contacts, not glasses, but Sammy can see the big glasses as if Jack still had them, always – and cups Sammy’s cheek.

“We should talk,” Jack says in a quiet, teary voice. “When things are less – when we get back home. When your dad’s funeral isn’t tomorrow. But –I _really_ need to kiss you in the treehouse.”

Sammy doesn’t feel like he’s in control of his own limbs when he nods, but that doesn’t matter because Jack’s lips are on his, hesitant and soft and tasting like the wine Sammy’s mom bought for tonight, and he thinks he’d fall apart if not for Jack’s hands on him.

“Was that –” Jack, somehow, looks unsure. Sammy wants to tell him everything, about how he thinks every day about holding hands as children, how he wishes he could go back and make sure they never stopped, not for a day. Jack should know by now, but Sammy hadn’t let him, and now –

“Yes,” Sammy says, firm and certain in a way he doesn’t think his voice has ever sounded. “Jack, you – you have to know. It’s always been you. Always. Seven years old – and you moved in and I – _always_.”

Jack laughs, and his eyes widen in surprise like he hadn’t meant to make a sound. “Me, too. You’re the only – I only ever wanted you. God, I wish – tomorrow – I wish I could hold your hand.”

“Yeah,” Sammy whispers, flashing forward to what he already knows will be the longest day of his life. His father’s memorial service, the cemetery, and now Jack will be there and he’ll know Jack wants to touch him and he’ll want to touch Jack, but it won’t be allowed.

It’s never been allowed, though. And they’re in the treehouse, just the two of them, holding hands, Jack kissing him again.

“We might never be here again,” Sammy whispers when Jack moves back, and Jack’s blush is visible even though the moon is the only thing casting light.

“That’s why I wanted to kiss you tonight in the treehouse,” Jack says. “Just in case there was never another chance. Poetic symbolism and all.”

“We’re very poetic,” Sammy says, and leans in again. They’re alone. It’s okay. No one can see, no one will notice. They’re still holding hands, like they’re six and seven and it’s still okay. It is okay. It’s _going _to be okay. Someday.


End file.
